Editor’s Note: Welcome Home

I was lucky enough to enjoy a wonderful conversation for over an hour with our CEO of the Year, Kevin Dolliole, and toward the end of our chat I shared how, growing up in San Diego I always had a special love for the airport there.

If you haven’t flown into San Diego before, I’ll just say it’s a bit of an adventure. The airport is located smack dab in the middle of the downtown area, and as such, you fly incredibly close to multiple city landmarks — Balboa Park among them. I used to attend live theater performances in the park and the performers were trained to freeze the whole show whenever a plane flew over so you didn’t miss any of the dialogue. While I’ve heard it can be a bit harrowing for pilots, at least for me, it’s always been a special little “welcome home.” (As a side note, San Diego’s 50-year-old terminal currently has a $3 billion expansion plan, and the airport authority announced this past summer a goal to raise $500 million to improve access to and from the airport.)

As a fairly frequent traveler through-out my life, and someone who has called two countries and at least eight different cities in the Northwest, Southwest, Midwest and South home, this is only the second airport that I have loved. Coming home from our last trip just before Thanksgiving, it felt a little special — there was this sense of excitement. It’s like the difference between being greeted by an old taxi or black car service. I can’t wait for our friends and family to get the same greeting when they visit. This is such a special city that we deserved a special welcome mat to roll out and, thanks to the hard work of Mr. Dolliole, and everyone at the airport over the course of many years, that’s exactly what we got.

Everyone at Biz is so proud of all of our Business People of the Year and all the ways they are taking our region to new heights. Here’s to prosperous new beginnings for us all!

Happy reading!